Things have been a tad quiet on the Planet of the Apes front of late, but Deadline reports that the sequel to Rupert Wyatt's hit reboot — saddled with the unwieldy title Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which instantly makes me think zombies are going to join in with our primate frenemies on the assault on mankind — has landed a new director in Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In).
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You know this movie, and chances are that you loved this movie -- except for that one role that almost ruined it all. Miscast Roles is where Movieline and its readers swap out those roles to make it right.
One of last year’s surprise critical and commercial darlings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, wowed audiences, stoked many an awards-season debate and revitalized an important science fiction franchise — all while still managing to appeal to moviegoers unfamiliar with the original 1968 film (or that film's 1963 source novel). As chief chimp Caesar, Andy Serkis’s performative collaboration with the motion capture geniuses from WETA was a great spectacle, presenting viewers with a gorgeously rendered CGI-animated character.
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*: As determined by Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done.
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You know that when two of the most respected pundits in all of Oscardom argue (within days of each other!) for curtailing both the epic Academy Awards season race and the ceremony in which it culminates, patience for all this crap is wearing thin. With that in mind — and also considering that the "race" for most of these categories ended weeks or months ago — who's up for an Oscar Index lightning round? (The entire staff at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics raises its hands.) OK, then — to the Index!
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"Let's have a moment of silence for the suffering Oscar bloggers as they enter the most trying and mortifying weeks of their labors." Such was Glenn Kenny's tweeted lament earlier this week -- one eerily anticipating today's latest, sanity-thrashing edition of Oscar Index. And that's just its effect on readers! You really don't want to see the catatonic pall saturating Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. On the other hand, we're gonna make a fortune recycling this mounting pile of wine bottles. To the Index!
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It's a little difficult for the specialists at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to come into work these days, what with the pall of predictability settling in over the awards landscape and the painstaking studies into backlash physics yielding less and less of practical substance. What's a frustrated kudologist to do? Besides drink for the next four weeks straight, I mean. Let's look for ideas and encouragement for all in this week's Oscar Index.
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There's good news and bad news to begin this post-nomination, next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-last installment of Oscar Index. The good news? It's kind of almost over! The bad news? Oy. Please don't make me repeat it.
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Smack in the middle of a two-week frame yielding two awards shows and a pair of nomination announcements that will culminate in this year's Oscar nods, the researchers at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics have gained minimal insight into where the Academy may take the 2011-12 awards race in next Tuesday's final nominations. Or maybe they're all just sleeping. It's been that kind of year. Let's check their work in this week's Oscar Index.
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What a week at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the pundits' hustle harmonized with the guilds' bustle to create a heavy-duty wake-up call for some otherwise dormant awards-season underdogs. They also telegraphed danger for a few juggernauts once thought unassailable. What does it all mean as we head into the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards weekend? To the Index!
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When James Franco took to the blogosphere to pledge his awards season support for Rise of the Planet of the Apes co-star Andy Serkis and his performance-captured turn in the film, Serkis was the one person who probably appreciated the gesture most, precisely because it did what he couldn’t do himself: Provide an argument in favor the art of performance capture as a mode of legitimate acting, from an outsider’s perspective. Serkis rang Movieline to chat and expressed appreciation for Franco’s open letter.
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Over at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, tonight's double feature is a particularly inspired pairing of simian cinema from 2011: the cautionary thriller Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the equally harrowing doc Project Nim. What lessons can be taken from this matching of monkey movies?
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Spoiler alert: James Franco's character wasn't always supposed to survive the Rise of the Planet of the Apes chaos. According to an early script, Franco's Will Rodman was supposed to die in the arms of his primate pal Caesar after being hit with a bullet during the dramatic forest showdown. At the last minute, the filmmakers decided to change the ending and flew the actor cross-country to film an alternative goodbye scene with Caesar (Andy Serkis). The casualty-free climax made the final cut, Rise of the Planet of the Apes grossed over $400 million worldwide and Will Rodman lives to film a potential sequel. [THR]
Over at Bleeding Cool, director Rupert Wyatt spitballs about ideas for a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the first-week critical and commercial successes of which seem like good indications that sequels will indeed happen. Wyatt's idea for the next film in his Apes reboot? "Full Metal Jacket with apes." Oh, yes.
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Well, that settles it -- America loves monkeys! Well, much more than they love Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman and poop jokes. So let's welcome our new simian masters and celebrate what this weekend's box office numbers mean: A) Apes > everything, B) R-rated comedies have to try harder, and C) so do Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig if they want to take back the crown from those damn, dirty Smurfs. Your weekend box office is here!
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With summer movie season nigh, Movieline turned to the critics to see which blockbusters and potential sleepers are at the top of the experts' most anticipated lists. From star-powered vehicles to long-awaited sequels, space superheroes to Spielbergian sci-fi, our pundits' picks ran the gamut, but one film emerged the clear front-runner. Is it the same event movie you can't wait to see?
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